The present invention relates to an electroplating anode titanium basket including a surrounding section which is able to increase the production ability and facilitate supplementation of the supplier.
As shown in FIG. 7, in existing electroplating operation, an electroplating bath 81, a titanium basket 82 and a work piece 83 are placed in an electrolytic tank 8. The titanium basket 82 is mostly made of titanium which is electrically conductive without being electrolyzed. A metal supplier 821 which can be electrolyzed to provide cation is placed in the titanium basket 82. The supplier 821 is electrically connected with the anode, while the work piece 83, which is to be supplied, is electrically connected with the cathode. By means of the electrolysis of the anode, the supplier 821 is coated onto the work piece 83 to form an electroplating coating so as to achieve anti-rusting effect. During the electroplating operation, it is necessary to supplement the supplier 821 in the titanium basket 82 in proper time.
FIGS. 8 and 9 show an existing anode titanium basket which is composed of two sheets of meshes 84. The mesh 84 is made of multiple metal wires 85, 86 which are bent into wave shape. The wave crest 851 of one metal wire 85 intersects and connects with the wave hollow 861 of the other metal wire 86. Accordingly, the adjoining sections of the wave crest 851 and the wave hollow 861 will have a thickness twice the diameter of the metal wires 85, 86 as shown in FIG. 10. A number of such sections with uneven thickness will be distributed over the surface of the mesh 84 and the surface will have multiple transversely projecting sections 87. When the supplier 821 is placed into the anode titanium basket 82, the supplier 821 tends to be stuck by the projecting sections 87 or stopped by the intersecting sections of the metal wires 85. In the electroplating operation, the supplier 821 is continuously electrolyzed to the cathode so that it is necessary to supplement the supplier 821. The titanium basket 82 is not taken out of the electroplating bath 81 and it is directly observed from the upper side of the bath level whether the supplier 821 in the elongated titanium basket 82 immersed in the bath 81 is sufficient. However, the supplier 821 will be stuck by the mesh 84. As a result, although it is observed from the upper layer of the titanium basket 82 that there is still sufficient supplier 821, in fact, the bottom or other lower positions of the titanium basket 82 have already lacked supplier 821. Therefore, it often takes place that the top section of the work piece has an electroplating coating, while the bottom section of the work piece has no electroplating coating.
Another type of mesh 91 of the existing anode titanium basket 9 is formed by multiple longitudinal metal wires 92. The surface of the mesh 91 is free from projecting sections with uneven thickness so that the supplier 821 will not be stuck and there will be no uneven electroplating coating of the work piece.
However, the existing titanium baskets 82, 9 both have the following problem: The surface area of the supplier 821, that is, the area of the soluble anode, will affect the efficiency of the electroplating. The current load of the cathode is better than that of the anode and is proportional to the electroplating efficiency as the area of the soluble anode. Therefore, the supplier 821 is made with circular shape or crown-shape with larger surface area (as shown in FIG. 11 ). In actual use, such supplier 821 with larger surface area can increase the area of the soluble anode. However, the electroplating efficiency can be only slightly enhanced. Moreover, the supplier 821 is resolved from both the front and rear sides of the titanium basket 9. With insufficient area of the insoluble anode, the concentration of the electroplating bath 81, such as the concentration of nickel sulfate in nickel electroplating tank and the concentration of cupric sulfate in copper electroplating tank, will be quickly increased to exceed the standard value. This will lead to the following affections:
1. The stress of the electroplating coating is increased to make the electroplating coating cracky. PA1 2. The crystal granule of the electroplating coating is large and the plainness of the electroplating coating is poor. These lead to poor anticorrosion ability. PA1 3. The resistance of the electroplating coating is increased to make uneven the distribution of high and low current efficiency of the respective parts of the work piece. This leads to poor unification of the electroplating coating.
Therefore, the increment of the concentration of the electroplating bath 81 will result in many ill affections in the electroplating operation. The concentration of the electroplating bath 81 is quickly increased so that it is necessary to discard a part of the electroplating bath 81 in short time. The remaining electroplating bath is diluted for further use. The discarded electroplating bath will seriously affect the environment and can be hardly treated. This leads to environmental pollution problem. Therefore, the circular or crown-shaped supplier 821 with larger surface area will result in quick increment of the concentration of the electroplating bath 81 and is not preferred.